Before I Go: Do Social Networking Your Way

Over the last 10 posts, I’ve shared a lot of suggestions for your approach to social networking. I hope that some of have been useful to you and I even hope that you’ve decided to completely disregard some of them. If there’s one key takeaway I’d like people to get from all this rambling on it’s this…

As a business using social networking, you need to approach it in a way that works for you. You have a unique audience and so you need to find your own unique approach that fits into your overall business plan.

There are so many social media experts out there telling us we have to be doing this and we have to be doing it X times each day or we’ll fail, but that’s just complete nonsense. At the core of everything you do is a business and that’s where you need to focus your growth. Social networking is simply a complement to that business. It cannot make or break you, unless you give it so much attention that you forget about actually growing your business.

So, as you build your social networking plan, consider the following:

– Which networks are the best fit for you and produce the best results to match your goals

– Scheduling your participation or hiring help, so it doesn’t interfere with other business tasks

– How to grow your very targeted following and how to deliver them something unique and useful

When you have all that figured out, everything else falls into place. But don’t get discouraged if you don’t have a crystal clear plan yet. It takes time and experimentation to find what works best for your business, so get out there and do it. Stay focused and you’ll get there.